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SEOUL, Nov 17 (Reuters) – Saudi Aramco (2222.SE) plans a $7-billion investment at a South Korean affiliate’s factory in the port city of Ulsan to turn out more high-value petrochemical products, the company said on Thursday.

The project, named Shaheen, is the Saudi firm’s biggest investment in the Asian nation to develop one of the world’s largest refinery-integrated petrochemical steam crackers, Aramco said in a statement.

Full coverage: REUTERS

Chip Stocks Hammered In Asia, Dollar Firms On Hawkish Fed

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TOKYO, Nov 17 (Reuters) – Chip stocks took a beating on Thursday, sending most Asian share indexes lower, after grim signals from Micron Technology overnight about excess inventories and sluggish demand.

Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar rebounded after stronger-than-expected U.S. retail sales suggested the Federal Reserve was unlikely to ease up in its battle with inflation.

That fuelled concerns about the economic outlook, with the U.S. Treasury yield curve remaining deeply inverted in Tokyo trading and suggesting that investors are braced for recession.

Full coverage: REUTERS

Morning Bid: Good Is Bad? Depends On Who Or What You Are

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SYDNEY, Nov 17 (Reuters) – A look at the day ahead in European and global markets from Wayne Cole.

Good is bad again – or vice versa – as markets worry upbeat U.S. retail sales will lead to higher interest rates for longer.

Some of the better-than-expected performance was likely due to rising prices, but Walmart’s success suggests discounting was driving volumes and might be disinflationary.

Anyway, sales ex autos and gas were up a solid 0.9% and the control group for GDP up 0.7%. That pushed the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow to 4.4%, implying the economy is speeding up not slowing down. What’s bad for Wall Street might be good for everyone else.

Full coverage: REUTERS

U.N. Publishes Draft COP27 Climate Deal

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SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt, Nov 17 (Reuters) – The U.N. climate agency published a first draft on Thursday of what could be the over-arching agreement from the COP27 climate summit.

The document, labelled a “non-paper” indicating it is still far from the final version, repeats the goal from last year’s Glasgow Climate Pact to “to accelerate measures towards the phase down of unabated coal power and phase out and rationalize inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.”

Full coverage: REUTERS

Oil Falls On Easing Geopolitical Tensions, China Demand Worries

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SINGAPORE, Nov 17 (Reuters) – Oil prices extended declines on Thursday as concerns over geopolitical tensions eased, while rising numbers of COVID-19 cases in China added to demand worries in the world’s largest crude importer.

Brent crude futures fell by $1.04, or 1.1%, to $91.82 a barrel by 0430 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures slid $1.17, or 1.4%, to $84.42 a barrel.

On Wednesday Brent dropped by 1.1% and WTI 1.5% after Russian oil shipments via the Druzhba pipeline to Hungary restarted.

Full coverage: REUTERS